* Given the cost of the henhouse and feed, it’s cheaper to buy eggs - even the most expensive organic, free-range type. * I’d have to grow vegetables so I’d have somewhere to put all the chicken poop. Hey, genetic engineers: Please also design cats that poop lavender potpourri.) It’s not about ability, it’s about intention, and they are wannabe-vampires, I tell you. That’s why they fly into your face: sheer bloodlust. * A great pesticide-free way of eliminating the legions of snails eating their way through my tender flowers, and ditto for the grasshoppers that jump up from nowhere and freak me out, and also moths, because I just don’t like them, and yes, it’s a phobia, and yes, not liking moths is a pagan party foul, and no it doesn’t make any sense, but you’ll never convince me that if they had teeth, they wouldn’t rip your jugular vein out. * Excellent fertilizer for all the vegetables I don’t grow. * The obvious: fresh organic eggs, from chickens living a happy little life in my back yard. My innovative little mind is ticking off all the justifications for having backyard chickens: Just call me “SMom” for short.Īnd so, after indulging in some Instagram photos, I forced myself to push my cart onward, as if an invisible sword was pointed into my back forcing me forward, right through the checkout and to the car - without a cardboard carrier full of peeping squeeeful cuteness.Īnd that should be the end of this little story, right? Oh come on, you know me better than that. The only difference between “mother” and “smother” is an “s,” you know. Whether it’s kids or cats or evil homicidal lesbian bunnies (and don’t even get me started on the horse, because I want a web cam in his paddock so I never have to stop looking at him … I’d bring him home and let him sleep on my bed if my unreasonable husband would just stop objecting), I’m hard-wired to fret and fuss over it, often far beyond the tolerance point. You’ll be awake in the middle of the night worrying about whether the chicks are too cold, or too hot, or bored, or lonely, and you’ll be fighting the urge to run to the computer to search for ‘chicken toys’ at 3 a.m. “Yes, yes, Heart, I know you want them,” replied Brain, “But all cuteness aside, they’re still essentially pets that must be cared for and, in particular, fretted over, and you know what a neurotic, hovering mess you become over anything you’re responsible for. If I were a cartoon, my hands would’ve been clasped under my jaw, with tiny red hearts bursting from my eyes like confetti. So there I was, pushing my cart full of horse feed, and right in the center aisle, there they were: tiny peeping chicks huddled under heat lamps and pecking at cute little round food trays, and hopping around and flapping their teeny tiny wings, and I went from zero to full-on cuteness-overload-squeee mode in less than five seconds. (Note to genetic engineers: Could you design a horse that eats money directly? It’d save me a bunch of trips to the feed store.) This year, however, it’s not Peeps I’m pondering, but peeps: the kind that emanate from huddles of cute, fluffy little chicks at the feed store when I go restock on alfalfa pellets and horse supplements. They’re truly disgusting, particularly the crunch of sugar between your teeth, and yet, entirely irresistible. While some ponder the Christian mysteries this time of year, I ponder the secular humanist hippie pagan mysteries: Peeps. It should be called “Really Spectacularly Horrible Vicious Cruel Friday,” if you ask me.)īeing of the “imagine no religion” camp, for me, this time of year means pastel-colored everything, bunnies, baby chicks and handfuls of Cadbury Mini Eggs (also known as “crack”). (Sure, the story ends well, but excuse me - “Good Friday”? Talk about an inappropriate name. It’s Easter week, and if you’re a secular humanist hippie pagan (guilty), you’re more likely thinking Easter bunnies and colored eggs than pondering the spectacular display of human cruelty that marks this holiday.
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